It’s easy to come up with reasons why we can’t be happy,
Or accomplish our dreams.
Why we can’t overcome a problem.
The boss is rude.
The traffic is bad.
I was betrayed.
I have an excuse to settle where I am.
I lost a loved one.
As long as you’re making excuses you’ll justify staying where you are.
Excuses give us permission to settle for less than God’s best.

The Right People
Who you spend your time with has a great impact on your life.
There are God ordained people who will inspire us and make us better.
If you’re spending time with the wrong people you won’t meet the right people.
You’ll get stuck.
You can’t hang out with chickens and expect to soar like eagles.
Others' qualities rub off on you.
It’s time to make a change.
You won’t become who you were created to be if you don’t make changes.
Don’t hang around a hot-tempered person or you’ll become hot-tempered. [Proverbs 22:24-25]
Spirits are transferable.
If you hang out with a gossip, you’ll become a gossip.
That stingy spirit will get off on you.
If you hang around excellent people excellence will rub off on you.
Those same good qualities will become a part of your life.
Make sure people have the qualities that you want.
—People that inspire you to go further.
Joel has a friend that treats his wife so great.
It inspires Joel to treat his wife better.
We shouldn’t hang out with people who are disrespectful to their spouses.
We have to set boundaries.
If someone is always negative, critical, finding fault, then they’re not for you.
Be selective.
At work or home we don’t always have a choice.
But Joel’s talking about when you do have a choice.
Life is too short to waste time hanging with the wrong people.
—People without integrity.
—Always have a problem.
Surround yourself with eagles.Proverbs 28:7Young people who obey the law are wise;those with wild friends bring shame to their parents.
—People who aren’t adding value to your life.
You may be lonely for a season but God will bring you somebody better.Psalm 1 don’t sit inactive in the pathway of the ungodly.What if I hurt their feelings?
What if you miss your destiny?
Don’t keep going to the gym with the same people who are causing you to compromise.
Joel's friend met a companion in same field, and they decided to start a business together.
But the man was hot-tempered.
At the last moment Joel’s friend passed on the opportunity.
Several years later he met a man of great integrity and they started a successful business.
What you’re unwilling to walk away from is where you’ll stop growing.
God will never ask you to give up something without giving you something better in return.
There’s always a blessing attached to obedience.
Don’t spend time with people who bring out the worst in you.
Daniel had an excellent spirit.[Daniel 6:3]
And he had excellent friends: Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednigo.
He had friends that were people of integrity.
If your friends are Larry, Curly and Moe then you have a problem.
There is a principle called the law of the group.
We associate with people the way we see ourselves.
Complainers find other complainers.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Make sure you’re flocking to the right group.
Successful people find other successful people.
Young people, choosing the wrong friends can keep you from your destiny.
Find friends that will make something out of their lives.
20 years from now no one will care who was most popular.
I would rather have one friend with their head on straight than 20 mediocre friends.
In school the science club and math club members aren’t popular.
Geeks and bookworms later become bosses, judges, etc.Proverbs 27:17As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
Your friends should be sharpening you and making you better.

Some friends are only in your life for a season.
You can outgrow relationships.
True friends will understand it.
They’ll be happy for you and celebrate what’s going on in your life.
You can’t try to hold on to something that’s over and done.
Sometimes people that knew you back when will try to keep you back.
Everybody can’t go where you’re going.
The higher you go the tighter your circle has to become.Genesis 12:1-9.
Abraham left but he took his nephew with him.
They had a disagreement.
It could’ve been avoided if he’d left who he was supposed to leave.
How much heartache comes from refusal to leave those God told us to separate from?
Abraham and Lot had to split because of all the conflict.
Abraham meant well but just because someone is related to you doesn’t mean they’re connected to you.
God has a different assignment for them.
Maybe they’re at a different level in their growth.
This can be a very hard thing to do.
—Letting go of the people who are not supposed to be in your life.
There are family members and relatives who can’t go with you.
You have to love them from a distance.
For Abraham it kept getting worse.
They split but Lot’s family got captured.
Abraham went and rescued Lot.
Abraham wanted to be good to his relatives, out of the kindness of his heart.
How many times are we trying to avoid letting people down, but making wrong choices?
We shouldn’t spend a lot of time with people that are constantly negative.
That you have to keep them fixed.
Joel believes in helping people and being a blessing, but if you’re the one always giving don’t let others control you.
Until you put your foot down they’ll continue to manipulate you.
People are carrying the heavy burden of always trying to please people.
The man had 4 friends who lowered him thru the roof to get to Jesus. [Mark 2:1-5]
But you can’t spend all your time carrying others.
If you only have people around you that need to be carried that’s out of balance.
You need people that can carry you.
God has designed people to come into your life to lighten your load.
People that will use their connections to take you further.
Because you’re so consumed trying to carry the weight.
Sometimes it’s pride; thinking you can do it on your own.
What God has planned for you will take more than just your weight.
You need four friends to lift you up.
God has friends lined up for you that don’t need anything.
You don’t have to inspire them - they’ll inspire you.
Make sure you have people in your life that can carry you.

There is a little boy named Owen with a rare muscular disease. He looks much older than his age.
At 6 he didn’t want to go outside.
He became very depressed.
His mother saw a big dog on Facebook up for adoption.
He had been chained to a railroad track and lost one of his legs.
Owen felt an instant connection to the dog.
Owen loved to go outside with his 3-legged dog.
He wanted to enter him into a prestigious dog show.
He won for best rescue dog.
If God can bring a dog into a little boy’s life to cheer him up, how much more will God bring people into your life?
He has already lined up the right people to get you where you’re supposed to be.
What you’re unwilling to walk away from is where you’ll get stuck.
God is going to bring the right people for every season.

[Prayer]

[Altar Call]

DISCLAIMER: This is not a transcript of Joel Osteen's message, these are my personal notes which I share to bless others. They are not published nor endorsed by Lakewood Church or Joel Osteen
Ministries.

Foundation verses from the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 6
Why did God give us these laws?
He brought us out to bring us in.
Many Christians don't understand why God brought us out.
He brought us out to bring us in to a Promised Land.
God brought us out of slavery/sin, to bring us in.
Not so we could do laps around Mount Sinai for 40 years.
There is a Promised Land.
The Word of God is full of promises.
There's a because to our salvation.
If we're not free we can't free anybody else.
We need a generation of Christians who know the difference between deliverance and freedom so we won't die in the wilderness, but come out and go in and take a generation into the Promised Land with us.Deuteronomy 1:
It takes 11 days to go from Horeb to Mount Sinai.
Verse. 3 says in the 40th year.
There's a disparity between 11 days and 40 years.
Many of us take 40 years for what should take us 11 days.
When you come out from something you always come into a wilderness.
Although you've come out of something, something has still got to come out of you. I'm giving you 11 days to get Egypt out of you.
But 40 years later there was still the same mess, obstacles, and hurdles.
Christine went through a lot of abuse and rejection that Jesus saved her from; but she was still full of shame and bitterness, etc.
So God said I'll walk you through a wilderness to get that slavery out of you.But I don't expect you 40 years later to still be doing the same thing.I set you free so you could walk into the Promised Land.
So many Christians stop in the wilderness.
Spend their whole time on earth doing laps.
—the same poverty and greed...
Round and round.
Christians can't afford to keep doing laps in America.
We must be who God called us to be.
You were once slaves and now you're free.
I want you to walk in the fullness Jesus Christ came to give you.
Why is it someone like Christine was able to walk in the fullness of God's promises?
Did God favor her more than the Christian still locked in the cycle of abuse?
Delivered from the physical state but still in the wilderness metaphorically speaking.
The blood of Jesus is no more potent for Christine than others.
But you must believe Jesus is who He says and will do what He said.
It's about Jesus, and His power.
His grace, His mercy.
Get our eyes off our limitations.
But we make what was done to us bigger than what was done for us.
How do you do it?

Christine had to get born again in the Houston traffic.
That’s a sanctification freeway.
She was vacillating between 2 messages.
A or B? Congregation chose B.
A was in her notes, B in her brains.

We don’t have time on the planet to play games.
Some have been serving Jesus a long time.
We need to get this; get to a place of being rather than doing.
We reproduce what we are; not what we pretend to be.
It's not all about doing whatever you want to do.

Do we want 613 Mosaic laws or 2 verses?
Women chose the 2 verses.
What’s the greatest commandment in the law?

Matthew 22:36-40 New International Version (NIV)“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The whole law can be summed up here.
Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul.
And you can’t separate loving people from loving God.
Christine got a trainer so she would look fit in front of all the people at an upcoming conference after having a baby .
She had 8 weeks to get ready for the conference.
She was ready to start training but the trainer said no.
She had a C-section.
Lady said “Your core is weak”.
All you do stems from your core; if you start activity prematurely your body will eventually collapse.
Gave her a yoga mat and exercises.
Sitting there she felt Holy Spirit speak.
You have a spiritual core.
Body is weak on the earth because the core is weak.
We’re trying to do things from the outside in instead of from the inside out.
God doesn’t want us to act like Christians He wants us to be Christians.
Not pretending to be Christians.
Our core is love God with all your heart, soul, & mind.
And love your neighbor the same way you love yourself.My body does love its neighbor as self, but they don’t love themselves.
We love God with our broken hearts, wounded souls, and tormented minds.
—And you see God that way.
And that’s how you end up loving other people.
So we put on an act because we don't know what else to do.